Kiss & Tell
by Weapon of Choice
Summary: I again tamper with literature as I present a modernized version of 'A Scandal in Bohemia'. Damien is back.
1. The Mysterious Caller

A/N  
  
Once again I'm claiming I have no ownership of anything, though both Damien and Shelley are basically my creation. All my plots are indirectly Mr. Doyle's, so I really have no right to them either, just the embellishments. And once again I claim that Damien looks like Orlando Bloom with out the LotR makeup and I'm thinking Shelley might look like Natalie Portman. That's just the author's opinion, so whatever. If you read it, please review!  
  
THANK YOU  
  
As I sat in the cafeteria, a figure suddenly dropped down across the table from me.  
  
"What are you up to?"  
  
I looked up. The pronunciation sounded more like "wut ah yah op tah". That was to be expected considering the speaker was British.  
  
"Finishing my English assignment," I said as I shoved a cup of coffee across the table to the occupant, "there I got a cup of poison for you."  
  
A handsome young Brit softly smiled his appreciation, and accepted the black sludge he called coffee. I never could understand how he could drink it like that. I'd known Damien 'Sherlock' Holmes for almost two months now. In that amount of time I had gotten closer to him than probably anyone else on campus, and for good reason. Sherlock was arrogant, misanthropic, rude, and carried around a distinctly superior quality. He was also an intelligent, humorous, fiercely loyal individual who was probably more wounded on the inside than anyone else I'd ever met. Not to mention he was incredibly handsome. Tousled brown hair, highly defined cheekbones, and a gorgeous smile when he decided to use it, if he didn't have such an austere image he could have owned the campus women wise. But he didn't, preferring to lock himself in his dorm room or go to the library to study. I was probably the first real friend he'd had around here, and he only accepted me because I hadn't given up on him. Oh, he'd tried to get rid of me at first, but when I wasn't as put off as everyone else and I showed that I was reasonably intelligent, he gave in and let me into his world. So much so that I know the rumor on campus about us was that we were dating, which wasn't true. Though I wouldn't have been adverse to that.  
  
"You busy on Thursday?" I asked, "I've got a calculus test and I could use the help."  
  
"Yeah, I'm free"  
  
Suddenly Sherlock's cell phone went off.  
  
"Odd," he said as he raised the phone to his ear, "I don't know that number."  
  
The person on the other end of the line must have been talking rapidly because Sherlock didn't say anything for quite some time.  
  
"All right," he said finally, "come by my dorm room later."  
  
He pulled the phone away with a slightly puzzled look, as if the other party had hung up on him.  
  
"Strange, someone just called me and said they had an emergency they thought I could help them with."  
  
He still looked a little bewildered, then he pushed the dial back button on the phone.  
  
"Yes," he said, "is this the sports center. Oh, it's not? I see. Thank you."  
  
He looked over at me, a slight smile quirked on his face.  
  
"It was placed from a frat house," he said.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"If you're willing to get involved I think you could help me dig up a little scandal and see what this may be all about."  
  
I gave him a wicked smile.  
  
"Scandal? Really, that's my middle name." 


	2. A Sticky Situation

A/N  
  
Someone pointed out to me that Damien's accent wouldn't have been as pronounced as I made it. I realized after I read that, that I never got across that he is Cockney. The way I worded it was poor and I will change that when I get the time. Damien does have a very heavy accent, like I said he's not the real Sherlock Holmes. The real Sherlock Holmes I feel would sound more polished, Damien does not. I never in a million years meant to generalize all Brits as having the same accent. I should know; I lived there for a while. Sorry folks. And the person who said they liked the real version of the story better, well so do I. Just like I liked the real version of Taming of the Shrew and Othello instead of 10 Things I Hate About You and O, not that those weren't good movies, I just felt the real thing was better, but it was fun to see someone try it different and that's all I'm attempting. I'm not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers or say my way is the best, personally I think Doyle is the master and I consider myself a lowly apprentice writer if that. It's a tribute to a genius plot line, not a take over. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Sorry about this long note, but I felt I had to straighten some things up.  
  
THANK YOU  
  
I sat on the floor of Damien's dorm room still doing English assignments as we waited for his mysterious caller. I was beginning to wonder if this was all a big hoax when Hunter Levines walked in. He took one look at me and started to back out of the room.  
  
"If you want help," Sherlock said, "you're going to have to talk to me in front of her."  
  
As I said before, Damien was nothing if not fiercely loyal. If he wanted me in that room, there I'd stay. With Sherlock it was his way or the highway. End of discussion. I waited to see what would happen. Hunter looked vaguely like a trapped animal.  
  
"I've got myself into some trouble and I thought you might have some advice," he said reluctantly.  
  
There is something that needs to be said about Hunter Levines. He is the king of the frat houses, every girls dream. One of those people who can clear all males out of a room by sheer presence. He's gorgeous in that football player type of way and he's got the ego to go along with it. His father has some high government job and Hunter has never been strapped for cash as far as I knew. He also has dated about every popular girl on campus. Lately he had settled down to one girl though, enough that there were marriage rumors. What he could have done recently was beyond me.  
  
"Spit it out," Sherlock said rather disgustedly.  
  
"You see it's kind of… delicate," Hunter said haltingly, "Jack said you were pretty smart at figuring stuff out and I thought you might know what to do. You see I'm going to ask my girl to marry me. It's just that there's Renee."  
  
Renee Travis was one of Hunter's many ex-girlfriends. She was the daughter of a very wealthy business owner. They had been hot and heavy for a while but then had broken off. As far as I knew though it had been pretty amiable.  
  
"We sort of made a tape…"  
  
Hunter was turning a rather peculiar shade of red. I was confused momentarily then slowly the lights in my mind began to turn on, and I tried desperately to stop from laughing.  
  
"You made a sex tape and Renee still has it doesn't she," Damien said deadpan, "and you're afraid she's going to give it to your girlfriend."  
  
Hunter nodded but didn't look up.  
  
"We've looked everywhere," he said, "my buddies have been through her room. I asked her for it but she said she was afraid I'd use it against her. Her father is running for office around here."  
  
He looked around at us pleadingly.  
  
"I love my girlfriend," Hunter said, "I don't want her to find this thing."  
  
"Then you shouldn't have made it," I heard Damien mutter under his breath then say out loud, "I'll see what I can do."  
  
With that Hunter vanished from the room. Sherlock and I stared at each other in amusement.  
  
"Was that just about what I think it was just about," I said.  
  
Sherlock smiled sarcastically.  
  
"If you play with fire you're like as not to get burned," he said, "jerk had it coming. He's used every woman on campus."  
  
"Then why did you agree to help him?"  
  
Sherlock ran a hand through his hair.  
  
"The sooner that guy gets off the market," he said, "the sooner he won't be breaking anyone's heart. I think he does love his girlfriend, but he should have considered that before all this."  
  
"So what are you thinking of doing?" I asked.  
  
"Wait and see," Damien said with that wicked smile he has a way off producing when he thinks he's found a solution.  
  
Some times that man was just insufferable. 


	3. Pain

I had been a wreck all day, in and out of classes, not really paying attention. Today was the day that the drunk driver who hit and killed my father was being tried. It was always when I thought I was coping with everything that something would make it all come back and hit me hard again. I wandered through classes in a thick fog waiting for my mother to call me about the trial. I was sitting in the downstairs dorm study area trying unsuccessfully to study when Damien showed up.  
  
"You ready to help me?" he said.  
  
"Do what?"  
  
I was always a bit wary when he made suggestions like that. Sherlock has a tendency to think very unorthodox methods should be implemented at every occasion applicable.  
  
"Get this tape back. I've got everything worked out, but I need your help," Damien said, verging all most on excitement.  
  
He never got so enthusiastic as when he was trying to figure something out.  
  
"Well, what?" I said, trying to sound more exuberant than I felt right then.  
  
I guess I wasn't a very good actress because Sherlock looked at me a little puzzled and searched my face like he was trying to figure out why I wasn't more into this. I tried to rearrange my features into something closer to happiness for him.  
  
"Anyway," he said finally, " I need you to do something illegal for me."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I want you to pull a fire alarm when I tell you."  
  
"You have got to be kidding," I said.  
  
Just then my phone went off. I jumped and cradled it to my ear.  
  
"Mom?"  
  
I could hear my mom crying.  
  
"He got off with community service and a fine," she sobbed, "they said there wasn't enough case for manslaughter charges."  
  
I bit my lip and tried to keep from crying. So this was how it was going to end.  
  
"It's ok honey," my mom said, "I'm ok. Are you all right?"  
  
"Yeah Mom," I lied, "I'm fine."  
  
After a few minutes I turned off the phone and sat on the edge of the couch with my bottom lip quivering slightly.  
  
"Shell?"  
  
Damien was watching me with concern.  
  
"The guy who hit my father got off the manslaughter charges," I said shakily.  
  
"I'm so sorry," Damien said, putting his arm around me.  
  
With that rather uncharacteristic move from Sherlock, I couldn't hold back anymore and started sobbing. I had stayed so calm through the whole trial that now I just couldn't take it anymore. Damien pulled me into a tight hug and let me cling to him and sob into his shirt.  
  
"I'm sorry," I choked out, "I don't want to do this in front of you."  
  
"Shhhh," he said, "it's all right. You need to be with someone right now. It's ok."  
  
I slowly started to calm down as he held me and rubbed my back. I finally pulled away sniffling and wiping away tears.  
  
"Thank you," I managed.  
  
"It's all right," Sherlock said, "I'll tell you about everything tomorrow ok? You go to bed now."  
  
I stood up and started to leave. Before I could leave, Damien grabbed my wrist.  
  
"If you need anyone to talk to I'm right across the hall," he said, "please don't do this alone."  
  
I bit my lip again at this extraordinary person who couldn't be social to save his life, but was so willing to sit with me through a bout of crying it broke my heart. Damien Holmes knew a thing or two about pain, and to the people he considered friends he would go out of his way to ease their pain. It just made me wish there was some way to help him stop hurting.  
  
"Thank you," I said again as I left the room. 


	4. 3 O'Clock Wakeup Call

It was 3 o'clock in the morning and I couldn't get back to sleep. It was starting to bug me that I didn't know what Sherlock wanted me to do to help him. That's when I did something unprecedented. I slid across the hall and tapped on Damien's door. After a few minutes the door cracked and a hazy looking Sherlock confronted me. He was rubbing a hand through his hair and not wearing a shirt, only flannel pants. Again I marveled at his looks that seemingly needed no maintenance. When he realized it was me, he looked concerned again.  
  
"You all right?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, I just couldn't sleep," I said, feeling very embarrassed about waking him up now and trying to pull my eyes up from his chest to his face, "I wanted to know more about what you wanted me to do."  
  
"Ok," he said, "we can go down to the student kitchen."  
  
He glanced back at his still sleeping roommate.  
  
"I don't think Jack would be too thrilled if we tried to talk in here now."  
  
I nodded. Damien seemed to notice his shirtless state at this point and raised a finger to me as he disappeared back into the room. He reemerged pulling on a loose, long-sleeve white shirt. I followed him down to the kitchen. As I sat down, he started talking.  
  
"Have you noticed that Renee's room is right next to the kitchen?"  
  
It was an unorthodox way to start a conversation but that wasn't all that unusual considering it was Sherlock.  
  
"No I actually haven't taken it upon myself to notice that," I said.  
  
"Well, it is. What I want you to do is pull the fire alarm at the end of the hall when you smell smoke."  
  
"Smoke!? Sherlock, you're not going to burn something down are you?"  
  
He grinned.  
  
"Nooooo. Not exactly."  
  
"Oh that's reassuring," I muttered.  
  
"Just do what I say, all right? This will work."  
  
One thing that you can't say about Damien is that he is ever at a loss about his own abilities. He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eyes and yawned.  
  
"I'm sorry I got you up," I said rather ashamed again, "I should have waited."  
  
His dark brown eyes studied me momentarily, then he reached across the table and grabbed my hand. I was rather shocked at that and nearly jerked it back, but he was being serious.  
  
"You don't ever need to apologize for being friends with me," he said sincerely, "I know I'm not easy to get along with and you have done remarkably considering. You're probably my one friend around here. If you haven't noticed, I don't get out much or go out of my way to befriend anyone. You're there for me, I'm there for you, end of discussion."  
  
He let go of me and I found myself wishing he hadn't.  
  
"Well, we'll see how this all plays out tomorrow," Damien said as he got up from the table, "and I would suggest you going back to bed now that I've eased your mind."  
  
I watched him disappear down the hall and wondered exactly what he was going to do tomorrow. And I found myself also wondering why I still wanted his hand on mine again. I went to him trying to get things cleared up, and as would always be typical, I ended up being more confused than when I started. 


	5. Execution of the Plan

I was worn out the next day from my relatively sleepless night. After morning classes I found Sherlock waiting expectantly for me in the hall the housed Renee's room.  
  
"The fire alarm is at the end of the hall," he said, pointing, "don't hit it until you smell smoke."  
  
"Don't you feel even a little guilty for doing this to some girl you don't even know?" I asked.  
  
"Guilt? What's that?" he retorted with one of his more devilish smiles.  
  
I groaned and turned the corner down the hall to where the fire alarm was. I was about to do something very illegal and rather annoying, all for the sake of some spoiled brat frat boy.  
  
"I can't believe I'm doing this," I grumbled to myself.  
  
I started to feel extremely uncomfortable after a few minutes of loitering in which nothing happened. I swore to myself that I would never help Damien again. It wasn't worth it. Suddenly I started to smell smoke, not just the kind that comes from burnt toast, but the really thick kind.  
  
"If he lit something on fire," I muttered, "I'll kill him myself."  
  
With that I pulled the fire alarm and moved as quickly as I could to the stairwell to get away from the scene of my felony. I joined the gathering crowd of people that had come pouring out of the dorm when the ear-bleeding alarm had gone off. Thankfully, there weren't that many people in their rooms, considering it was the middle of the day and most people were in classes. I started to back away from the crowd when I ran into Sherlock, who grabbed me by my shoulders and drug me with him in the direction of the cafeteria.  
  
"Found it," he said when we were safely away from the crowd, "she had a compartment in the bottom of her makeup case."  
  
"How do you know?" I said warily.  
  
"Because she went for it when the alarm went off," he said.  
  
"And how did you know she was going to do that?"  
  
"Because when you think there's a fire, what do you do? You go for your most valuable item to take with you. For her it was that tape," he explained, "I have class with her, thankfully, and you pulled the alarm while I was asking for notes from class. She had no reason to think anything of me watching her, so she went for it."  
  
"You're horrible," I said.  
  
"You really think so?" Damien said with mock concern, "I got the job done didn't I?"  
  
I just looked at him sadly.  
  
"Remind me never to trust you," I said finally.  
  
Surprisingly, Damien looked like had just slapped him by saying that. His dark eyes registered the closest thing to hurt I'd ever seen in response to a statement like that.  
  
"I just don't approve about how you went about this one," I tried to amend, gesturing to the fire truck that was just arriving on the scene.  
  
He nodded and raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Maybe it was a little underhanded," he said.  
  
I sighed.  
  
"I think you just forget about the limits of decency sometimes when you're trying to figure out something. There are rules of conduct whether you like it or not, and I think you might have stepped over them this time."  
  
"I know," he snapped, "you don't have to lecture me."  
  
"I'm not trying to," I said softly.  
  
For some reason his getting mad at me had the same affect on me as my saying I didn't trust him had had on him. He knew it right away too.  
  
"Ah, Shell I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean that."  
  
He watched me look at him in disbelief then before I could stop him pulled me into a hug. This had been happening a lot in the past two days and I was kind of starting to like it. He pulled me back to about arms length and looked me in the face.  
  
"We all right?" Damien asked.  
  
"Yeah," I said, "as long as you don't make me pull a fire alarm again."  
  
"Deal." 


	6. To the Victor...

The next day I met up with Damien in the cafeteria as usual. He was sitting at a table with an odd look on his face and biting his nails. This was a nervous habit I'd noticed with him when he was trying to think or got frustrated. It was a sure tip off something unusual had happened.  
  
"Damien?"  
  
He looked up at me.  
  
"You're not going to believe this," he said.  
  
"Coming from you I'd believe a lot of things that I normally wouldn't," I sighed.  
  
"She moved out."  
  
I stared at him.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Renee moved out," he said, still with that peculiar look, "she's just gotten married and moved to the couples dorm."  
  
"Whoa," I said.  
  
Damien shoved a piece of paper across the table to me. It was in a woman's very clear, precise handwriting.  
  
"She left it under my door today," he said.  
  
I picked it up.  
  
Mr. Holmes,  
  
Very clever of you figuring out where I kept the tape. I never suspected until afterwards. I figured Hunter wouldn't be smart enough to think of anything like that on his own, but enlisting your help was rather ingenious of him. When they found out that the 'fire' was a smoke bomb in the oven (rather childish of you, don't you think?) and I realized you had seen everything, it all came together. Tell Hunter not to worry though. I'm getting married today and moving out. I love my fiancée very much, so Hunter doesn't have to worry about me being jealous. I am keeping the tape though. Call it my insurance policy against Hunter's very influential parents. By the time you get this I will be down at the courthouse getting married. My hat's off to your ingenuity though. It really was brilliant.  
  
My regards, Renee  
  
Damien Holmes had just been outmaneuvered by an unsuspecting woman. It was almost laughable.  
  
"I called the courthouse," he said, "she wasn't lying. She got married at 11:30."  
  
Suddenly he looked up at me with a smile.  
  
"I had it coming to me didn't I?" he said.  
  
"Would you get mad if I said yes?"  
  
He grinned at me. At least he was taking defeat well.  
  
"You should have tipped me off that woman are more intuitive than I sometimes give them credit for," he said, "you are for instance."  
  
I shrugged.  
  
"So you made me a criminal for nothing?" I asked.  
  
Sherlock lazily looked over at me.  
  
"Guess so," he said unconcernedly, "you needed some more excitement in your life though."  
  
"And you're it?"  
  
"I keep you from being bland," he said simply.  
  
I made a face.  
  
"So what are you going to tell Hunter?" I asked.  
  
"The truth. I lost this one, and he was an idiot for passing over a very intelligent woman."  
  
I laughed. Damien gave me a funny look.  
  
"She reminds me of you," he said.  
  
I wasn't sure exactly what to make of that statement, so I just pretended to become very interested in my books and changed the subject.  
  
"So, does my loser friend want me to buy him lunch to make up for me being right?"  
  
"Nah, I'm full of humble pie right now," he said with a grin.  
  
"You are such a cornball."  
  
"Yeah, I know."  
  
A/N  
  
I am going to write another one (everyone runs and hides). Yeah, I know, frightening huh? Maybe I can get the two of them together in the next one, how about? Anyway, thanks for the reviews and flames. The reviews make me happy and the flames make me laugh, so thanks.  
  
WoC 


End file.
